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Gender Differences and Online Nastiness
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Thursday, May 10, 2007
4:27:00 PM EDT
Hearing No Parachutes, Throwing Muses
[Some strong language ahead] Hi folks -- a couple
of weeks back, the Washington Post had an article
summarizing some of the challenges faced by women bloggers -- in
particular, sexually-oriented flames, threats and harassment (most
recently exemplified by the Kathy
Sierra incident): "Sexual
Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers."
I've been sitting on this entry for two reasons:
1. It brings up some really tricky issues.
2. There's always something happening that brings up another angle on this.
(This is going to be a long entry that threatens to spiral out of control, just like many online arguments -- you are warned.)
This Is Not a New Problem
***************************
Now, online harassment is nothing new to online communities (or even offline communities -- not many things get nastier than a spat between neighbors), but the whole public nature of blog conversations makes things a lot more accessible to others.
In any given Internet discussion or comments thread, you're going to see a lot of nastiness, especially when people do drive-by comments in front of people they don't know on a site where they don't visit regularly. Why? Lots of reasons, but here are a few:
1. Some people are just mean. Maybe they're mean offline, too, but there's also a phenomena defined in the Penny Arcade comic that I will paraphrase thusly:
2. Some people just get off on causing trouble. It ranges from the mildly-annoying people who feel the need to post "first post!" [video, strong language warning] on everything, to every other sort of troll and troublemaker who just wants attention, and to get a rise out of other people.
3. Some people are just insane. I don't mean people who just can't let go of an argument or let someone else get the last word in. They're kind of nutty, but I'm talking about the truly deranged, sociopathic or psychopathic. There are always a few out there.
It's a Problem for Everyone (But It's Usually Worse for Women)
*****************************
When the gloves come off (if they were ever on in the first place), everything is on the table. But some men are awfully quick to start in on the woman-hating online, because:
4. Some men reeeeaaally have a problem with women. We know there's a stereotype of the shrill, man-hating harpy out there (which is its own kind of a woman-hating putdown), but if you look at any robust flamewar out there, just take a look at who's calling whom what:
* Appearance is usually first. The targets of your venom are just as ugly on the outside as they are on the inside. Just look at how people judge Ann Coulter, Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh or Rosie O'Donnell.
Women usually fare worse in this department, since we as a society tend to be more focused on how they look. Even during the height of Rathergate, people weren't talking about Dan Rather's haircut or the cut of his jacket, but when Katie Couric took over the CBS Evening News anchor spot, people were focused on what she was wearing -- and she hadn't even done anything yet.
Similarly, right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin has said she's been dealing for some time with similar gender-based slams that you just don't see with male bloggers in the political blogosphere.
* Name-calling is kind of a mixed bag, since the way men and women are treated is a little bit the same, a little bit different. Men tend to call out other men as being practictioners of deviant sexual practices which may include relatives, animals and corpses, though the most common opening gambit is calling a man a word that starts with "f" and ends in "-aggot."
However, when males get into it with females, it's usually along even more sexualized lines, where the woman is defined by her anatomy and what she does with it. Which gets into...
* Threats of violence: You start off with mild forms of stuff like "DIAF" (short for "Die in a Fire", basically an updated version of "Drop dead" or "Take a long walk off a short pier" common on Fark and other sites -- you can find the origin of this turn of phrase here.)
Beyond that, with males, there's a lot more chest-bumping, Internet Tough Guy, "I'm gonna kick your ass" kind of stuff, though as it develops (somewhat paradoxically), the same fellow who was calling you a homo the sentence before now threatens to violate you in a manner familiar to fans of the HBO prison series 'Oz.'
When it comes to women, the violence is usually even more sexual. Some of it is based in your garden-variety virulent misogyny from men who don't like to see women expressing an opinion: ("Get back in the kitchen and make me some pie.")
However, no matter how powerless a man is, or how soundly thrashed he's getting in an argument, he always has a trump card when it comes to women -- threats of rape and sexual violence. Credible or not, it's pretty powerful stuff.
Here's a somewhat personal anecdote -- my friend Susie got featured on BoingBoing recently, for a particularly disgusting incident with a raw chicken breast sandwich; looking at the comments in the originally-featured blog entry included an anonymous flame with some really graphic and sexualized terms.
No Answers
***********************************
OK, so until someone comes up with a way to punch someone else in the face via the Internet (I'm eagerly awaiting the day that they implement the IP protocol -- "Internet Punching"), and there's relative anonymity, and you're arguing with some random stranger somewhere, and there's little to no cost for you to unleash a barrage of incivility on that person, what can we do about this?
Not sure, other than to continue to talk about it and build tools, processes and policies. Some additional analysis and thinking:
* Salon had a pretty good take on it: Men Who Hate Women on the Web, showing the difference they've seen towards male and female columnists there.
* Over at Villainous Company, Cassandra talks about her own experiences and theorizes that "Just as we expect men to be more civil, we [women]may need to toughen up a bit," as well as not only changing the rules of the game, but also changing the game itself.
* Journaler Ceilisundancer at Random Threads shares some of her personal observations (she also noted to me that "I've actually gotten more e-mail responses/comments than public comments, which is interesting, also.")
And if you want to help fight gender inequality (so that we're all abused equally), consider going to a charity screening of the movie 'Serenity' in June, proceeds to benefit Equality Now.
If you want to share your own thoughts or experiences with online harassment (gender-based or not), leave a comment or a link below (remember, no flamewars, posting personal info, or slamming other people in my comments.)
Thanks -- Joe
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4:27:00 PM EDT
Hearing No Parachutes, Throwing Muses
Gender Differences and Online Nastiness
I've been sitting on this entry for two reasons:
1. It brings up some really tricky issues.
2. There's always something happening that brings up another angle on this.
(This is going to be a long entry that threatens to spiral out of control, just like many online arguments -- you are warned.)
This Is Not a New Problem
***************************
Now, online harassment is nothing new to online communities (or even offline communities -- not many things get nastier than a spat between neighbors), but the whole public nature of blog conversations makes things a lot more accessible to others.
In any given Internet discussion or comments thread, you're going to see a lot of nastiness, especially when people do drive-by comments in front of people they don't know on a site where they don't visit regularly. Why? Lots of reasons, but here are a few:
1. Some people are just mean. Maybe they're mean offline, too, but there's also a phenomena defined in the Penny Arcade comic that I will paraphrase thusly:
Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total [Nasty Idiot].
(Here's the comic -- Warning: Superstrong language.)2. Some people just get off on causing trouble. It ranges from the mildly-annoying people who feel the need to post "first post!" [video, strong language warning] on everything, to every other sort of troll and troublemaker who just wants attention, and to get a rise out of other people.
3. Some people are just insane. I don't mean people who just can't let go of an argument or let someone else get the last word in. They're kind of nutty, but I'm talking about the truly deranged, sociopathic or psychopathic. There are always a few out there.
It's a Problem for Everyone (But It's Usually Worse for Women)
*****************************
When the gloves come off (if they were ever on in the first place), everything is on the table. But some men are awfully quick to start in on the woman-hating online, because:
4. Some men reeeeaaally have a problem with women. We know there's a stereotype of the shrill, man-hating harpy out there (which is its own kind of a woman-hating putdown), but if you look at any robust flamewar out there, just take a look at who's calling whom what:
* Appearance is usually first. The targets of your venom are just as ugly on the outside as they are on the inside. Just look at how people judge Ann Coulter, Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh or Rosie O'Donnell.
Women usually fare worse in this department, since we as a society tend to be more focused on how they look. Even during the height of Rathergate, people weren't talking about Dan Rather's haircut or the cut of his jacket, but when Katie Couric took over the CBS Evening News anchor spot, people were focused on what she was wearing -- and she hadn't even done anything yet.
Similarly, right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin has said she's been dealing for some time with similar gender-based slams that you just don't see with male bloggers in the political blogosphere.
* Name-calling is kind of a mixed bag, since the way men and women are treated is a little bit the same, a little bit different. Men tend to call out other men as being practictioners of deviant sexual practices which may include relatives, animals and corpses, though the most common opening gambit is calling a man a word that starts with "f" and ends in "-aggot."
However, when males get into it with females, it's usually along even more sexualized lines, where the woman is defined by her anatomy and what she does with it. Which gets into...
* Threats of violence: You start off with mild forms of stuff like "DIAF" (short for "Die in a Fire", basically an updated version of "Drop dead" or "Take a long walk off a short pier" common on Fark and other sites -- you can find the origin of this turn of phrase here.)
Beyond that, with males, there's a lot more chest-bumping, Internet Tough Guy, "I'm gonna kick your ass" kind of stuff, though as it develops (somewhat paradoxically), the same fellow who was calling you a homo the sentence before now threatens to violate you in a manner familiar to fans of the HBO prison series 'Oz.'
When it comes to women, the violence is usually even more sexual. Some of it is based in your garden-variety virulent misogyny from men who don't like to see women expressing an opinion: ("Get back in the kitchen and make me some pie.")
However, no matter how powerless a man is, or how soundly thrashed he's getting in an argument, he always has a trump card when it comes to women -- threats of rape and sexual violence. Credible or not, it's pretty powerful stuff.
Here's a somewhat personal anecdote -- my friend Susie got featured on BoingBoing recently, for a particularly disgusting incident with a raw chicken breast sandwich; looking at the comments in the originally-featured blog entry included an anonymous flame with some really graphic and sexualized terms.
No Answers
***********************************
OK, so until someone comes up with a way to punch someone else in the face via the Internet (I'm eagerly awaiting the day that they implement the IP protocol -- "Internet Punching"), and there's relative anonymity, and you're arguing with some random stranger somewhere, and there's little to no cost for you to unleash a barrage of incivility on that person, what can we do about this?
Not sure, other than to continue to talk about it and build tools, processes and policies. Some additional analysis and thinking:
* Salon had a pretty good take on it: Men Who Hate Women on the Web, showing the difference they've seen towards male and female columnists there.
* Over at Villainous Company, Cassandra talks about her own experiences and theorizes that "Just as we expect men to be more civil, we [women]may need to toughen up a bit," as well as not only changing the rules of the game, but also changing the game itself.
* Journaler Ceilisundancer at Random Threads shares some of her personal observations (she also noted to me that "I've actually gotten more e-mail responses/comments than public comments, which is interesting, also.")
And if you want to help fight gender inequality (so that we're all abused equally), consider going to a charity screening of the movie 'Serenity' in June, proceeds to benefit Equality Now.
If you want to share your own thoughts or experiences with online harassment (gender-based or not), leave a comment or a link below (remember, no flamewars, posting personal info, or slamming other people in my comments.)
Thanks -- Joe
Written by journalseditor Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
This entry has 7 comments: (Add your own)
-
You're right. This is tricky, and no one post or week of discussing it will "solve"all of this, while it sheds light and makes people aware. Well delineated.
-
Thank you Joe! This entry really means alot to me. I do hope that it will be read by many, and thought about as well.
Lisa
http://journals.aol.com/seraphoflove9001/Pleasedonttakelife forgranted/ -
It's sad isn't it. But the bottom line is that the internet just is another medium for all the ugly things out there in the world. I have been very lucky and untouched by it so far... but you never know when that could change.
Thank you for this thoughtful, considerate and enlightening post. I know of someone out there who especially appreciates this.
be well,
Dawn
http://journals.aol.com/princesssaurora/CarpeDiem/ -
Thanks for the public service announcement. You've done a good job here today, have a cookie!
5/13/07 11:51 PM